


For You

by ZenyZootSuit



Category: Kingdom Netflix, 킹덤 | Kingdom (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Beom-il doesn't die, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Child Abuse, Childhood Friends, Childhood Sweethearts, Childhood Trauma, Cho Hak-ju's A+ Parenting, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Physical Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:54:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23921914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZenyZootSuit/pseuds/ZenyZootSuit
Summary: It was always going to come to this...Or, what would have happened if Chang killed Physician Lee in time to save Beom-il.
Relationships: Cho Beom-il/Prince Lee Chang
Comments: 18
Kudos: 72





	For You

**Author's Note:**

> And so my hobby of torturing characters I find interesting extends to Beom-il. This is based partly off a very amusing conversation in the discord chat.
> 
> I originally intended this to be kind of silly, but mostly sweet and it turned into probably the most brutal thing I've written, as is consistent with my writing style. 
> 
> Seriously though guys, read the tags, the brutality of this makes VIIMF look like child’s play. On that note, this has nothing to do with VIIMF. Do enjoy :)

*******

_This day had been a long time coming. Beom-il had prepared himself for it for years. Crown Prince Lee Chang was never meant to ascend to the throne. His father had told him that since he was old enough to listen._

_It was always going to come to this. He had known that since he was fifteen._

_And the prince had even gone and made it easy for them, committing_ actual _treason. They hadn’t even had to frame him for it._

_It was always going to come to this._

_He was always going to have to watch Lee Chang die._

*******

Beom-il leafed through the King’s patient journal as he waited for the Crown Prince to show up. He knew he would, hellbent as he had been the past few years on dethroning the Cho clan. It was only a matter of time, just as it was only a matter of time before a new prince would be born into the world and they could finally be rid of the powerless King. They had been worried about the prince and his supporters putting up a fuss, but then they had gone and made it easy. Beom-il had been sent to collect the prince and drag him back to Hanyang to be tried for cut and dry treason.

How convenient.

Today was the day Beom-il would seal his fate, would read to him the “King’s” verdict, and condemn him to die. He had told himself for years he couldn’t wait for this day to come. That he would be overjoyed when it did.

And he was thrilled (he _was)_.

He heard the prince creep in the door.

“Is this what you came for?” he asked, turning around and holding up the King’s patient journal before letting it drop carelessly back onto the desk. “All the way here to Dongnae?”

The prince didn’t reply, his hand on the hilt of his sword as he eyes Beom-il suspiciously.

 _As if that will save you_.

He pulled out the bullshit decree from his Majesty the raging monster and read it aloud (the haughtiness felt empty).

“I shall follow his Majesty’s command and take you to Hanyang,” he finished, reciting the words he had repeated to himself whenever he had a bad day for years. “I will not bind you since you are the Crown Prince of this nation. Please follow me quietly.”

 _Or don’t_ , part of him hissed. _Or don’t and I’ll hog tie you and throw you over the back of my horse like a prisoner of war._

The other part of him was irrelevant.

The prince snorted, shaking his head miserably. “The _King’s_ command… Does this nation truly have a King?”

“What _ever_ do you mean?”

The prince’s glare went straight through him. “Why did you call Physician Lee to Hanyang?”

“Because he is the best at treating smallpox.”

“With the resurrection plant? Someone dead of smallpox perhaps.”

_Perhaps._

“Did my father pass away?!” the prince shouted at him, voice commanding and strong even as his eyes filled with tears. Beom-il was unaffected (he _was_ ).

“Of course he didn’t, your Highness,” he replied smoothly, letting (making) himself enjoy it. “His Majesty is…still alive.”

_So long as decomposing but reanimating every night meant alive._

“Though to tell you the truth,” he went on, a taunting edge to his voice (though even to his ears it sounded hollow). “His mental capacity is not exactly there. But he will be fine until the Queen gives birth.”

“What has he done to you?”

Beom-il kept his face perfectly neutral as he regarded the prince (even as that irrelevant part of him howled _you have no idea!)_ “I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean.”

The prince stared right back at him as the tears in his eyes threatened to spill over. “Your father. Cho Hak-ju. Again and again I’ve poured over everything I said and did, and I can’t find a single thing that could possibly have made you hate me this much, so it must have been him. What did he do to you?”

Beom-il's nails dug bloody divots into his palms. “That is absurd. Your Highness must be mistaken.”

“Why didn’t you come to me? I could have helped you. I did help you! I have always tried to help you!”

Beom-il had nothing to say to that.

“We were friends once,” the prince whispered. “What changed?”

The commander smiled. It was a vile thing. “What have you done, your Highness?” he asked, pain — _the anguish of years—_ making him _vicious_. “You were merely lucky to be born as the only son of the King. But you have done nothing to deserve such a title, no matter how much you want to think so. You are no better than us, but you have always looked down at my family and I with that look you have now, the look that says ‘I am different from the rest of you slugs.’ ”

“That’s not true and you know it. I never looked at you like that.”

“Isn’t it?” Beom-il half snarled.

_Do you have any idea how much pain you have caused me?_

_It’s your fault. All of it is your fault!_

The prince shook his head miserably. “Fine.” he said finally, a single tear slipping down his cheek. “You are correct. You are slugs, you are traitors. You have scorned the king and his family, and your greed brought misery down on the people! That is _all_ you, the Haewon Cho clan, have done.”

Whatever it was that Beom-il felt, he interpreted it as contempt.

As hatred.

_I hate you. I hate you with every ounce of my soul._

(The yellowing bruises on his ribs did nothing to absolve him of his sins.)

“You asked me to strike you once, did you not?” he growled. “I will grant your wish today.”

He drew his sword and the prince trembled, but not from fear, no.

From pain.

The prince drew his own sword. “And you will have to be punished for the crimes you have committed against the dynasty,” he replied, a resigned edge to his voice. “I must punish you for them.”

Beom-il scoffed at the short little blade. “You cannot kill a person with that sword.”

But the prince certainly did try.

*

_“It would be ideal for the prince to return alive,” his father had said before Beom-il departed. “So that he may be tried and executed for treason and our hands will remain clean. However.”_

_Fixed with his father’s ice cold, emotionless stare, Beom-il tried not to shiver._

_“Should he cause you any problems, being attacked and murdered by robbers en route to Hanyang is such a common way to die.”_

_“I understand, father,” he answered, eyes fixed on the floor, feeling nothing._

_“Make it look convincing. And Beom-il ah…”_

_The commander stopped at the door._

_“Do not fail me.”_

*

They fought. They fought hard. The prince was a decent swordsman, better than Beom-il had been expecting.

_You’ve gotten better since you’ve grown up._

The prince got in a few hits on him, slicing the strap of his gat clean through and leaving a bloody scratch in its wake (Beom-il barely even felt it, and it served only to enrage him more). Once, for the briefest of seconds, he even came by an opportunity where Beom-il’s guard was down (who the bloody fuck put that shelf there) and he could have ended Beom-il’s life if he had moved quickly enough.

But he didn’t take it. Blatantly he didn’t even try, and Beom-il hated him for it.

That’s what he focused on. Hate. How he _hated_ the prince. The prince in a position he didn’t deserve, all of the _pain_ and _suffering_ he had _caused—_

_*_

_“He hit you again, didn’t he?”_

_The eight-year-old prince knelt in front of nine-year-old Beom-il on the ground, gently holding his hand as Beom-il cried. The Chief State Councilor’s son nodded slowly._

_“Let me see.”_

_Beom-il lifted his chin slightly and the prince ran his small fingers gently over the purpled skin along his jaw._

_“I was running though the yard in the dark last night,” Beom-il recited dully. “I couldn’t see where I was going.”_

_The prince hugged him tightly. Beom-il hugged him back._

*

The prince was a decent swordsman, but he wasn’t better than Beom-il. He held out longer than the commander had been expecting, but in the end he still lost.

 _Do it,_ he thought, seeing the opportunity and setting himself up for the strike.

_Make it look convincing._

_Do it._

_Do not fail me._

He swung.

He swung, and he stumbled, stopping himself at the last second with his blade to the prince’s throat.

_He couldn’t do it…_

He couldn’t do it now, just like he couldn’t do it back in the King’s palace with the prince bursting through the halls late that night, about to uncover their entire plan.

“You should not have been born the Crown Prince,” he panted as the prince looked up at him, knowing he was beaten.

_It was always going to come to this. No matter what, it was always going to come to this._

_Do it._

Despite the hatred he felt (forced himself to feel) and all the time and energy he had spent executing his family’s plan, he still couldn’t do it.

It was then that an ominous thumping drew Beom-il’s attention away from the prince at his feet. After that, it was truly astonishing how quickly everything went to shit.

Their plan, his pride, what was left of his fucking honor, all gone in the time it took to open a fucking box.

******

Physician Lee. In a box. Turned into a monster, same as the King.

How it all happened exactly was still a bit of a blur for Beom-il.

The thing attacked one of his men, so he put a sword through its spinal column, expecting that to be the end of it.

Only it didn’t…fucking…die—

Then he was getting shoved against the shelves as he held the thing back with every ounce of his strength, trying to keep himself from being impaled on the point of his own sword as it snarled and snapped at him. Several more stabs to the torso failed to even make it flinch, but Beom-il was able to get enough space to _shove_ it away from him.

It attacked his remaining man, who crawled into the box to hide from it. Beom-il had just been creeping up on it to try and get his sword back (stupidly, _stupidly,_ he had let go of it out of shock—) when the soldier who had been lying dead on the floor, throat ripped out, _stood up_.

Stood up and _attacked him_ , snarling like the monster.

Beom-il just barely managed to lunge for the soldier’s blade on the ground and decapitate it. And stupidly, _stupidly_ , turn his back to the other monster.

The thing was on him before he even heard it approach, knocking him to the ground. It had his back and it was _heavy_ and it was _strong_ and Beom-il couldn’t do a _damn_ thing about it as it scrabbled for his throat and—

A heavy thunk almost echoed through the warhorse as the thing on his back spasmed before falling limply off to the side of him.

He stayed where he was for a moment, shaking like a leaf and staring at the now dead thing off to the side of him, skull bashed in.

He turned to his other side to see none other than the prince — _Chang—_ standing there, wide eyed and panting.

_He….he had…_

_He had saved his life..._

The commander staggered to his feet. The prince eyed him cautiously, jerking back a few steps when Beom-il stumbled.

“Why did you do that?” Beom-il asked him, still trembling from the aftereffects of almost having his throat ripped out by an undead monster.

The prince was shaking too, clearly rattled as he looked at the now dead monsters on the ground (it was doubtful he’d ever seen such violence before). 

“We were friends once,” he said simply, not taking his eyes off the corpses. “I didn’t want to watch you die.”

*

_“Why are you helping me?” eleven-year-old Beom-il asked a ten-year-old Chang as they sat in a tree late one night, hiding from the guards and subsequently the Chief State Councilor. “My father told me that your family and my family are supposed to be enemies. We should hate each other.”_

_Chang sighed, leaning his head on Beom-il’s shoulder and lacing their fingers together. “Well I don’t hate you. I actually rather like you. Do you hate me, then?”_

_Beom-il could only stare at the young prince half asleep on his shoulder. “...No. I don’t suppose I do.”_

_*_

Beom-il didn’t know what to do with that. He didn’t have the faintest fucking idea.

*******

The remaining soldier would be getting executed for desertion soon, Beom-il thought darkly as he and the prince busted themselves out of the warehouse that the soldier had _locked them in_. The commander would see to it himself.

At least the fool hadn’t taken the horse.

Between the strange shadows and the earlier sounds of the monsters, the thing was spooked out of its mind. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed when they finally managed to chase it down and calm it enough that it wouldn’t throw them both onto the roof the minute they sat on its back.

Beom-il climbed on first while the prince held the horse’s head, seeing that it didn’t bolt or spook. Securely on, Beom-il offered the prince a hand. Chang eyed it suspiciously for a moment before accepting it, and the commander hauled him up behind him.

*

_“Get on, Chang! It’s easy, I’ll teach you.”_

_“You won’t let me fall off?”_

_“Not today, no. Eventually you’ll fall, but I’ll teach you how to be a good rider so that when you do, it won’t be so bad. Do you trust me?”_

_“Of course.”_

_*_

If, as they galloped off in the direction of the city at the prince’s behest—

“There were more bodies like that...” he said, distressed. _“We took them all to Dongnae!”_

—the prince wrapped his arms around Beom-il’s waist and held on a little tighter than he had to merely to stay on the horse, then the commander didn’t acknowledge it.

If he could feel the prince still trembling, he didn’t pay it any mind.

*******

Back in Dongnae, things had already gone to hell in a hand basket.

They could hear the crackling of the fires from the other side of the river as Dongnae went up in smoke. The prince’s arms tightened around him.

The horse jittered nervously under them, turning to look down the river. Beom-il shushed it, looking warily to see what had frightened it so.

A group of men, drunkards by the looks of it, were floating down the river in a boat. Most if them were laying about haphazardly, except for the one who was standing. Beom-il watched, suspicious, as the man turned to them and...

 _Snarled_.

It was then that the commander noticed the swarm of people sprinting towards a derelict bridge crossing part of the river. Only they weren’t people, were they? At least, not anymore.

_Shit._

Beom-il kicked the horse and they went flying.

Apparently the plague had changed. Somehow it had gotten out (that blasted physician must have released it before he himself caught it) and now it could spread at will.

_Fuck._

They lost the horse soon after that to the rough terrain of the woods. Beom-il had tried his best to keep it balanced, but the howls of the monsters and the shitty roads in the darkness were too much for it with two grown men on its back.

A group of monsters leapt out in front of them and the horse reared and fell. Somehow Chang managed to fall out of its way. Beom-il didn’t.

He fell hard with it, powerless to stop his right shoulder from slamming into the ground with a nauseating jolt that made his head spin _._ He didn’t even need to look to tell it was dislocated. He just counted himself lucky that when the horse got back up and bolted, no part of Beom-il was still attached to it. Because that would have been the end of him.

Then Chang was dragging him to his feet and they were both sprinting towards a rickety looking bridge.

“YOUR HIGHNESS!”

On the other side, the sound of a horse could be heard even above the monsters’ screams as the prince’s guard approached, covering them as they ran ti the bridge (Beom-il was half surprised the man didn’t take the opportunity to shoot _him_ down alongside the monsters. They had history, after all).

Somehow, they made it across without falling to their deaths. The few monsters that didn’t go careening off the sides and into the ravine were easily dealt with, though unfortunately that was only _after_ they took down the guard’s horse and almost took a few chunks out if the guard himself.

“You have to strike their heads,” Chang said quickly as he pulled a battered and stunned Mu-yeong to his feet. Beom-il took out a straggler with a quick slash of his sword (left and single handed, the cut wasn’t nearly as clean as it should have been).

“Your Highness, the barracks! We have to get to the barracks!” Mu-yeong pleaded and again they were off. Beom-il shoved his useless right arm into the folds of his tunic and followed.

From there, he added a whole score of names to his soon-to-be-executed list. Namely, the councilman and every fucking soldier behind those walls sho refused to let them in.

The prince, being the tallest and the one with two working arms, attempted to climb over the wall to open the gates himself when no one answered the people’s pleas for help, but was quickly shot off the wall with arrows by the soldiers who appeared at the councilman’s order.

“How dare you!” Mu-yeong yelled as the prince fell a good ten feet back to the ground. “He is the Crown Prince! Open the gate!”

The councilman spluttered. “Don’t try to fool me! Do not give me this nonsense! Get away, all of you! Anyone who climbs over these walls will be punished!”

Beom-il stepped forward. “You fools!” he roared, pulling out his best officer voice. “He _is_ the Crown Prince and I _am_ Commander Cho Beom-il! You _will_ let us in!”

“Don’t try to lie!” the councilman shouted again. “I will not believe you!”

When the people continued to try to climb over the walls, they were shot down again.

With an increased sense of urgency, Beom-il scanned the soldiers’ face. Of the soldiers he could see, he recognized at least three of them.

“I served with you!” he shouted at them, addressing them by name and visibly they trembled, but they did nothing, voiced no protests. Beom-il would see their heads on pikes and he told them so.

It was too late anyway. The monsters were coming.

Not long after that, they ended up in the river. Backed into a corner, there was nowhere else to go but off a cliff and pray the water was deep enough that they wouldn’t shatter their legs on the bottom and that the monsters wouldn’t follow them. They did, but by some stroke of luck, it turned out the monsters couldn’t swim.

Dodging rapidly sinking bodies, the three of them paddled their way to shore (swimming with one arm was not an enjoyable experience, never mind the fact that Beom-il had always hated getting wet). They sat in knee deep water the rest of the night, shivering and pressing close together for warmth as monsters yowled around them and Dongnae burned to the ground.

Beom-il needed a fucking drink.

*******

The commander was in no way sure how the prince managed to look every bit his composed self by the time they made it back to the city the next morning. Beom-il himself was sure he looked like little more than a wet rat.

“Are you all right, commander?” Mu-yeong needled him. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

_Oo, a regular comedian we’ve got here._

Beom-il fixed him with the most unimpressed look he could manage as the pain in his still-dislocated shoulder made him shaky and nauseous. “I popped my shoulder out last night. It isn’t very pleasant.”

“I wouldn’t expect so,” Mu-yeong said, shooting him a shit-eating grin when he was sure the prince wouldn’t see.

Beom-il returned it. “Would you like to join me in the experience?”

“Enough!” Chang shouted over his shoulder as he pushed past the crowd of people and into the main square. Beom-il and Mu-yeong followed closely behind him.

*

_“Chang? What are you doing hiding over here?”_

_The eleven-year-old prince glanced over at him, not taking his eyes off the crowd._

_“I don’t like gatherings like this. There’s too many people. I can’t see what all of them are doing. It would be...”_

_Beom-il sighed. “It would be what?”_

_“So easy for one of them to kill me.”_

_The councilor’s son shook his head. “Come here.” He grabbed the prince’s hand and pulled him to stand right next to him, hiding their interlaced fingers in the folds of their robes. “I have an idea. Stay here with me, no one will try to hurt you if I’m standing right here. But we can’t let anyone know we’re friends, right?”_

_The prince raised an eyebrow._

_Beom-il shot him a playful smile. “So we play a game. We pretend to argue and whoever comes up with the best insult has to steal the other a sweet next time we sneak out. Deal?”_

_The prince looked hesitant. “Lord Ahn says it is not good for me to drop to the level of my enemies...”_

_“But we’re not enemies, are we? It’s just a game. Besides, we’re here and he’s all the way over there.” Beom-il nodded to the man across the hall._

_Chang smiled. “You’re on!”_

_*_

In the square itself were a handful of guards, the councilman whose head would soon adorn the end of Beom-il’s sworn and…

None other than his _dear_ cousin.

He leaned himself against a pillar, carefully holding his injured shoulder in place so as not to jostle it (he could and would put it back himself, as he had several times before, he just needed a minute to get up the nerve). From there he watched as the prince strode forward, his guard close behind him.

The first thing Chang did was punch the councilman in the face hard enough to know him down, drawing his sword with a flourish and holding it to the man’s throat. A series of horrified gasps flittered through the crowd, but Beom-il could only nod, legitimately impressed as the councilmanspluttered indignantly.

“W-who did you say you were again?” Beom-il’s cousin stammered, not even thinking to berate the man who had just threatened a high official.Beom-il shook his head.

When he had been a younger and kinder man, he had attempted to help the poor boy who should have never been born a Cho work through his unfortunate speech impediment. It had, apparently, had no effect.

Chang tossed his identification tag to the ground and Beom-il was very amused to watch his cousin flounder for a moment before dropping to his knees and howling,

“IT IS AN HONOR TO GREET THE CROWN PRINCE!”

After a moment and another horrified shout from Beom-pal, everyone else followed suit. And in the center stood Chang. Tall, regal, and righteous as he looked out over the crowd of nobles. Beom-il couldn’t help the small smile that crossed his face as he looked on.

_Power suits him, doesn’t it?_

Chang _tore_ into them, berating them for their ineptitude and their callousness before immediately proceeding to set up a proper plan to deal with the monsters that wouldn’t result in the idiotic deaths of the rest of the survivors and the endangerment of the entire province.

“CHO BEOM-PAL, THE MAGISTRATE OF DONGNAE, WILL SEE IT DONE!” his cousin shouted, bowing deeply.

Beom-il snorted at the display.

(His father would not have hesitated to put real fear in the man if he saw it.)

Between the comedy that was his cousin and the warm feeling spreading through Beom-il’s chest as he watched the prince, he had actually been mostly distracted from the pain in his shoulder. At least until someone bumped into it, jarring it badly, and Beom-il almost passed out cold. Regaining himself, he slammed his good shoulder into the offender’s and kicked their legs out, knocking them to the ground as he hissed at them to watch where they were walking.

Even as the crowd began to disperse, the brief commotion unfortunately drew attention towards him, which he had been hoping to avoid.

“B-Beom-il? Is that you?” his cousin stuttered.

_Damn it._

“Beom-pal,” he said as he walked out into the courtyard, feeling a bit dizzy.

“Beom-il!” his cousin shouted, jogging up to meet him and clapping him on the (thankfully) left shoulder, seemingly equal parts apprehensive and overjoyed. “It’s been a long time!”

“So it has,” Beom-il drawled, eyeing his cousin’s grinning face.

And, because he was an asshole…

“Here,” he said, feeling at the joint of his shoulder before pulling his right arm out of the fold of his tunic. “Hold this.” From there, he placed his arm in a confused Beom-pal’s outstretched hands before bracing himself and _jerking back—_

Beom-pal squeaked in surprise as Beom-il’s shoulder squealed back into place with a loud pop and the commander swore echoed off the walls. He staggered as bile bubbled up his throat at the pain and his vision darkened around the edges.

_Man up._

He straightened his back even as the courtyard spun.

“Thanks,” he said simply, tucking his right arm back into his tunic as he took in Beom-pal’s intimidated face.

 _Success_.

Scaring the shit out of Beom-pal had always been a minor hobby of his. Because, as he said, he was an asshole.

*******

From there, Beom-pal followed him around like a lost puppy, as he was wont to do.

“S-s-so uncle sent you?”

Beom-il merely glanced at him, not wanting to be reminded of his failed mission and _all_ the opportunities he had had to eliminate their prince problem, of which he had taken none.

 _If my father finds out about this,_ he thought darkly as Beom-pal prodded him about something else. _He might just decide that you are the worthier heir._

He carefully rolled his shoulders, feeling thick scar tissue pull in long stripes across his back.

_If I’m being honest, he’s already halfway there._

“Beom-il.”

The commander turned to see the prince striding towards him.

“I’m returning to Jiyulheon.”

“I’ll come with you,” Beom-il said without thinking, though he was more than a bit eager to get away from Beom-pal and his unwittingly prying questions. He was eager, too, to hide his lack of answers to those questions.

Chang’s eyed him for a moment. “Can you ride with that shoulder?”

“Yes.”

The prince nodded and walked towards the horses.

Beom-pal stared after him, confused. “Since…since when—“

Beom-il cut him off. “Stay here,” he said flatly. “And _don’t_ fuck this up.”

His cousin nodded furiously as Beom-il walked away.

“We have to share a horse,” Chang said, stopping Beom-il as he moved toward the other horse. ”Mu-yeong needs that one to bring the physician when he finds her.”

Grudgingly, Beom-il swung up behind the prince, ignoring his proffered hand, and off they went.

More than accustomed to riding a horse without a saddle (when ordered to retreat from the Samurai in war, you got on whatever there was and fucking high-tailed it. If you fell off, you died), Beom-il simply rested a hand on the prince’s waist because he was lazy and didn’t want to balance on his own (sure).

Soon though, that hand had clenched tightly in the fabric of the prince’s robes as the horse’s movements jarred his extremely upset shoulder. Noticing his discomfort, the prince slowed the horse to a walk, turning around to look at him.

“Are you all right?”

“Fine, your Highness.”

“You don’t look fine. You look like you’re about to pass out and fall off the damn horse.”

Beom-il grit his teeth in annoyance.

The prince’s mouth twitched into a smile, urging the horse into a quick walk, but no faster. They rode in silence for a long time.

“Beom-il?” Chang asked after a while.

“Hmm?”

The prince hesitated ever so slightly. “You’ve had a thousand opportunities to kill me and make it look like an accident. You could have dumped me off the back of that horse last night and been rid of me in the blink of an eye. You could very easily have killed me on this ride. Why haven’t you?”

*

_It was the night of the prince’s thirteenth birthday. The King had thrown a feast in his honor, and Chang had hated every second of it._

_“Come on!” fourteen-year-old Beom-il laughed as they sat out in their favorite corner of the garden. “The food was wonderful! And the music and the dancing...”_

_“You don’t dance.”_

_“No, but I can watch, can’t I?”_

_The prince cracked a smile before it quickly faded off his face. “There’s too many people...I still don’t like it.” He shifted over and laid down with his head in Beom-il’s lap. “I like this better.”_

_Beom-il smiled and twined their fingers together as he looked up at the stars. “I was never very good with astronomy.”_

_“It’s easy,”Chang said, shifting so he could see and using his free hand to point. “I’ll show you.”_

_Beom-il wanted to listen. He tried to pay attention, he did. Chang had such a way of explaining things so that they made perfect sense, and Beom-il loved to listen to him, but he was far to preoccupied with the prince in his lap. His warm brown eyes looked enough like stars to Beom-il._

_“And that’s...you’re not even listening to me!”_

_“Sorry...” Beom-il murmured, brushing his free hand over the prince’s hair._

_Chang looked up at him, a blush visible on his face even in the dark. “Beom-il...” he whispered as if asking for something, leaning up ever so slightly._

_Beom-il thought to kiss him. He wanted to, but that was wrong. Two boys didn’t do that, it was a degenerate behavior of the royals of the old dynasty. It simply wasn’t done._

_So he didn’t. He looked away, letting go of the prince’s hand. Chang recovered himself a second later, poking Beom-il in the side. But he didn’t move from his spot in the other boy’s lap._

_“From the beginning then, pay attention this time.”_

*

The commander shut his eyes against the roiling mix of emotions in his chest. “Who’s to say I haven’t just been biding my time?”

The prince sighed heavily. “Why are you like this? There is no one out here to hear you, no one for you to posture for.”

Beom-il seethed a little at that.

“Why won’t you talk to me?” the prince asked quietly. “Tell me the truth. It’s not as if I haven’t kept your secrets before.”

Beom-il didn’t reply, instead leaning forward to rest his forehead against the prince’s back on an impulse. Chang didn’t press him further.

*******

Reaching Jiyulheon, Beom-il stayed outside with the horse. Perhaps if he didn’t see the prince gather evidence of his family’s crime, it would be easier for him to reconcile allowing him to do it. And to lie about it later.

(Deep down, he knew that was a futile endeavor.)

_I’ve chosen a side, haven’t I?_

_I never expected I would choose this one._

What choice did he have? (At least that’s what he told himself.) He owed the man a life debt now.

The guard and the physician showed up a bit later, paying him no mind as they entered. He watched their horse, too, absentmindedly picking at bits of straw. He wasn’t sure how long they were in there, gathering evidence to separate his head from his shoulders, along with the rest of his family, before they came out again.

Chang didn’t speak to him the whole ride back, the line of his body tense in front of him. (What could there have been to say, really? Other than ‘you ruined my life, I look forward to seeing you die’?)

It was late in the day by the time they got back. When they did, it was to an empty town. Assuming that meant the boats had been fixed, they made their way to the river...

To find a swarm of commoners sobbing and begging for the single boat in the distance to come back.

Beom-il sighed heavily.

 _What did I say, Beom-pal, what did I_ fucking _say…_

“What is that ship and who is on it?” Mu-yeong demanded.

 _Isn’t it obvious?_ Beom-il thought.

A scraggly looking commoner answered. “Military commanders and high officials of Dongnae.”

Beom-il was going to needs a lot of pikes when this was over. And they didn’t even clean up the fucking _bodies_ , but really what had they all been expecting?

(Standing on the other side of such treachery, Beom-il may have felt the sparkings of guilt.)

The gentry of Dongnae had torn down the walls of the barracks to fix the ship, leaving nowhere for the people (and the four of them) to hide.

Beom-il couldn’t find it within himself to be afraid. (It wasn’t that he wished to die, but if this was it, then this was it, and fear wouldn’t do a damn thing to change that.)

“Jiyulheon!” the physician from earlier suggested. “The monsters couldn’t get out. As such, it’s reasonable to assume they also won’t be able to get it.”

Fair enough.

And so they walked the deserted and rapidly darkening path amongst the commoners to the half-destroyed clinic on the outskirts of Dongnae. Beom-il walked alongside the prince in a haze, part of him shuddering to think of what his father would say (or do) if he could see Beom-il now.

_Well, he can’t, so it’s no use dwelling on it._

But with his blasted cousin off on that boat to Sangju, it was likely he would soon hear of it.

_If this is it, then this is it._

_He couldn’t bring himself to regret his choice._

A shriek knocked him out of his thoughts. He turned to see a little girl, holding tightly to the physician’s skirts as she pointed towards the rocks.

Monsters. Tens of them, stuffed under the outcropping. Something like dread welled in his gut as he saw how low the sun was in the sky, remembering the monster’s rancid breath on his neck, teeth inches from tearing his throat out.

And then the people around them were running. Beom-il was about to run too, but the prince stayed where was, watching as the people fled around him.

“What are you _doing_?” he hissed, grabbing the prince by the arm. “Do you _want_ to die here? We have to go!”

Chang shook him off, instead running _back_ to help with carts of the elderly and the spooked, refusing horses pulling them.

_Shit!_

After a moment’s hesitation, Beom-il followed him, along with the guard. The prince took the reins and Beom-il ended up behind it, helping another soldier push.

The prince got the horse to move, and they ran and pushed at the thing strained, but it was slow.

 _Too slow_ , he thought.

And that was _before_ the cart got stuck in a damn hole. With how this day had been going, that might as well happen.

“You have to go, your Highness!” Mu-yeong begged him. “Please! You must go!”

Chang ignored him, shouting at the others. “What are you doing?! Push!”

This was too much. “Your Highness!” Beom-il yelled at the prince. “Listen to him and _get out of here!_ ”

Chang rounded on him, snarling as he lifted the cart with all his might. “ _Go if that’s what you want!_ I’m different from you! I am different from the rest of your family! _I will never abandon my people!_ ”

 _Goddamnit it_ , Beom-il thought as some unseen force pushed him to stay, to help them lift even as his shoulder burned and screamed and something definitely tore. _I’m actually going to fucking die out here for you._

A part of him wondered if even that would absolve him of his sins.

Barely, just barely, they got the cart out in time. And then they were running for their lives, a horde of screaming monsters following right behind them.

The run back to Jiyulheon from there was a bit of a blur as well.

The monsters were _so loud_ , Beom-il could barely hear himself think. Not that he was thinking much else other than _run, run faster_.

One rolled down the hill in front of them, crashing into the horse before taking out the soldier to Beom-il’s right. Then before he knew it, he too was on the ground, having tripped over the man as he fell.

“Beom-il!” he heard the prince shout.

Then he had his sword in his left hand (damn it, of all the times to be short an arm) and was fighting for his life.

“Let’s go!” someone yelled behind him and with one last swipe at a monster, he took off after them. It turned out to be the scraggly commoner come back to get the soldier’s rifle. Conveniently, he could shoot.

Beom-il ran alongside the cart, defending it from monsters as best he could from the side while the guard too the other and the commoner took the back.

_They were almost there, they were almost there—_

A sickening clang of a rifle misfiring reached his left ear and he turned in time to see a monster leaping for Chang and Beom-il was completely out of position to help him. Thankfully, Mu-yeong came to the rescue, executing an impressive leap and decapitating the thing before crashing to the ground himself.

Chang _fucking_ went back for him, dragging him to his feet and making it behind the walls of Jiyulheon by the skin of their teeth.

That was a fucking miracle if Beom-il ever saw one.

The night was long, dark, loud and tense (it reminded him of being back in the war and he did not appreciate that reminder). They set up a series of blockades and Beom-il put those who could fight into a formation with the prince was at the very back.

“I can fight,” the prince growled. “My life is not worth more than theirs!”

Beom-il snorted. “That’s cute. Sit at the back.”

The prince opened his mouth to argue, but Beom-il cut him off.

“ _I’m_ the military officer here, eh? Tonight, _you_ listen to _me._ ”

The prince stared at him, equal parts royally pissed and taken aback. A soft plea from Mu-yeong though, and he grudgingly agreed.

Beom-il himself stood near the front, sword held in his left hand as he fixed his gaze on the front gate, watching the walls in his peripheral vision.

(If they made it over the walls, that was it, but he’d at least have liked a little warning.)

It was a long fucking night. He had never been so happy to see the dawn.

The scraggly commoner gave them the all clear and the people let out a collective sigh of relief. They bowed to the prince in thanks for saving them and Beom-il watched as the prince shook almost imperceptibly, a slightly sick look on his face. Rather than revel in their praise as any gentryman might have, he ordered food and water be prepared for them and a part Beom-il wished he had ever been such a man.

After all, what had he to show for his life? (It wasn’t like him to be so sentimental).

“Commander?”

Beom-il turned.

The physician dipped her head in greeting. “I noticed your shoulder was injured and wondered if you might allow me to take a look at it.”

His immediate reaction was to refuse her, as he hated healers and physicians, but indeed, Beom-il’s shoulder was stiff, swollen, and painful to the touch. Grudgingly, he agreed.

“Would you mind taking that arm out of your tunic?”

Ice ran through Beom-il’s veins. “I would mind.”

The physician regarded him patiently. “If you do not, I will not be able to tell as well exactly what is wrong, and you could risk the injury becoming permanent.”

 _Damn it._ It was his sword arm too. He could of course learn to be dextrous with his left, but a one-armed swordsman would always be at a disadvantage.

Begrudgingly, he reached for the ties of his tunic and carefully slipped his arm out, hissing as pain flared through the joint.

The physicians shook her head as she gently prodded the front of his shoulder. “I saw you put it back yourself yesterday, you really must be careful about that,” she chided him.

“I’ve done it before,” he growled. “Besides, it was fine until I lifted that cart last night.”

“I see...Here, I’m just going to feel at the back of it...” She pushed his tunic down his back a bit before he could stop her and fixed her with a cold stare at her sudden intake of breath.

“Yes?”

She said no more, carefully prodding at his joint and shoulder blade, making no mention of the numerous scars criss-crossing his back.

Beom-il shivered. As always whenever someone touched them or he saw the scars for himself, he was reminded of how he got them. And where his dislike of physicians came from.

*******

_Beom-il had known about his attraction to men for a long time. The sexes were to be separated, so Beom-il was constantly surrounded by no one but men. As such it was rather hard to ignore._

_Similarly hard to ignore was the Joseon taboo around homosexuality. It didn’t change a damn thing for Beom-il (much as he wished it would and make his life a bit easier), but it did make the kind of sex he would go out on the streets late at night searching for extremely risky. If he were caught—_

_Don’t get caught._

_For years he successfully hid his nocturnal escapades from everyone in his life (his father especially). Sneaking out into the back streets of the Hanyang Red Light district, he found brothels that catered discreetly to the needs of men like him._

_At first he was hesitant, fearing blackmail or extortion, but no matter where spent his nights he was still the son of Cho Hak-ju. They wouldn’t fucking dare._

_They brought him pretty boys. Younger than him, but of age (he was many things, but he wasn’t a fucking monster), tall and lanky, with soft black hair and warm brown eyes. He would blow out the candles before he fucked them, ordering them not to make a sound (it would ruin the illusion)._

_He would have never admitted it, out loud or to himself, but in the dark, he could almost imagine those boys were the Crown Prince. That’s who he wanted, after all, had wanted since they young men, boys even. Since they were friends..._

_But he would have never admitted it._

_In the end, he wasn’t sure how it got out. Maybe he got sloppy, or maybe someone sold him out out of spite. How didn’t really matter._

_He had come home late one night, stepping in silently and shutting the door behind him. He had been about to creep through his family home to his rooms when the sound of a match being struck brought his attention to the figure sitting in the corner._

_His father lit a candle and set it down next to him, the light almost menacing as it cast shadows across his stony face._

_“Where were you?” he asked simply._

_Beom-il answered honestly (it was the easiest way to lie). “At the brothel,” he said simply, voice betraying nothing. At his father’s silence, he added, “Surely you would not begrudge a young man his needs?”_

_His father blinked slowly, gaze frigid. “_ Which. Brothel?”

_Beom-il’s blood turned to ice._

_He tried to lie. He answered calmly with the name of a brothel employing only women, one he made a point to visit every now and again to be seen and dispel rumors but it was useless (he had been foolish to think he could hide from his father forever)._

_Beom-il didn’t remember much of the actual beating itself. Only snippets and the aftermath._

_His father had been beating him since he was eight years old. He was used to it (sure). He took his beatings like a man: with a straight face as much as he could manage, never making a sound._

_But that night, his father beat him so mercilessly he had broken, sobbing and pleading for him to stop. Which had been the wrong thing to do._

_He had legitimately thought his father was going to kill him, was going to beat him to death and leave the Cho clan to his idiotic cousin. But he didn’t. Just barely, he didn’t._

_Beom-il had nearly fallen silent by the time Cho Hak-ju dropped the bloody cane and grabbed his son by the hair, yanking his tearstained face up._

_“You will never go back to that brothel. You will never again pursue a man in that foul fashion. You will never again bring such shame and dishonor on our family, is that understood?”_

_And such bitter,_ bitter _hatred welled up in Beom-il that out of sheer spite he hissed, “Or what?”_

_The hand in his hair tightened._

_“What did you say?” his father barely breathed._

_Fear then, fear made Beom-il tremble but still he pushed on. As it was, what more did he have to lose? (Other than his life, of which there was likely not much left.)_

_“Or what?” he repeated, spitting out a mouthful of blood. “What will you do? What could you possibly do that you haven’t already done? I’m your only heir—“_

_His father backhanded him hard across the face, loosening a few of his teeth. “Not my only heir,” his father replied, a sinister edge to his voice._

_Beom-il lost his nerve then and ducked his head, instantly regretting his decision to challenge him._

_In a surprising feat of strength, his father literally threw him out the door and onto the street, telling him to consider his actions carefully and that they would speak again in the morning. He had lain there a long time taking stock of his injuries (they were extensive). At first he thought to sleep (or try to) out back as his father likely meant for him to do, but then it became clear as he coughed up blood that he needed medical attention, and his father wasn’t going to get it for him._

_He staggered through the streets of Hanyang, no doubt leaving a bloody trail behind him, unsure of where he was going. He had nowhere to go._

_Surprisingly, given his father’s usual capacity for discretion, how his father treated him was the single worst kept secret in Hanyang. Everyone knew. Everyone saw the unexplained bruises that sometimes appeared on Beom-il’s face, however rarely. Everyone sensed his unease and willingness to follow his father’s orders without question. Everyone heard the shake in his voice he tried so hard to suppress, how he often found himself utterly incapable of looking his father in the eye._

_As such, no matter which door he stopped at, they would know who had done this to him and they wouldn’t dare help him._

_Eventually he found himself out in front of the palace to see his sister. It was the only thing he could think to do. He could only hope she would remember all the times he had sought to protect her and would find it within herself to help him._

_By the time he got to the gates, he was nearly unconscious. Two guards grabbed him and, recognizing him, pulled him through the gates._

_“Take me to my sister…” he bit out and they obeyed, hurriedly asking him what had happened, had he been mugged?_

_He told them yes, that there was a gang of six or seven that had assaulted him on his walk home and had headed out into the forest. It was a flimsy excuse, but it was all he could manage._

_The look on his sister’s face when she saw him…_

_She bid the guards lay him down on the floor and run for the court physician. The servants she sent to get water and other supplies._

_“What did you_ do?! _” she hissed at him once they were alone._

_“Does it matter?” he breathed, body shaking from exhaustion and shock._

_It didn’t, and his sister didn’t press him further._

_The other thing he could remember from that night was that cleaning and bandaging the wounds hurt worse than receiving them, though maybe it was just the shock that had set in._

_It took four eunuchs to hold him down as the court physician carefully cleaned and stitched some of the deeper lashes on his back, but even then he still managed to throw them off every once in a while, half delirious from the pain and trembling as the physicians berated him for already tearing the stitches and making their job harder._

_“_ What _is this_ ruckus?! _” came a voice from down the hall, one Beom-il recognized._

_No, no…_

_He had been facing away from the door when Chang opened it, but he still heard the Crown Prince gasp. “By the ancestors…”_

_His sister yelled at the prince to get the hell out, what did he think he was doing barging in here like this, but he ignored her, coming to kneel next to Beom-il’s head._

_“Who did this to you?” he breathed, horrified._

_Beom-il didn’t answer him. From the look on the prince’s face, he didn’t have to. He already knew._

_“What can I do?” Chang asked and when the healers started to fuss, half shouted, “Tell me how I can help!”_

_Chang ended up helping the eunuchs hold him down as the healers worked. The prince was stronger than the servants, and his presence was, against all odds, calming to Beom-il, allowing the healers a chance to work with fewer interruptions._

_He fucking hated him for it._

This is your fault _, Beom-il thought, even though he knew it wasn’t._

_The wounds on his back would scar, the healers told him as they finished. He had six broken ribs, a cracked collarbone, and severe bruising to his abdomen and face. He was lucky to be alive, they said._

_If he had been stronger, Beom-il would have slit their throats._

Lucky.

_The healers and servants left, as did the Queen, given that she was equally as flecked with blood as the rest of them. Only Chang stayed behind. Once they were alone, he gently combed his fingers through Beom-il’s badly tangled hair, smoothing it out of his face and off his back into its usual knot on top of his head._

_“What happened?” he asked quietly, hands still stroking soothingly over Beom-il’s hair._

_“Does it matter?”_

_“Yes!” the prince insisted. “Yes it matters. He almost killed you, he should be in prison!”_

_“You would like that, wouldn’t you?”_

_“Beom-il, please…” The prince broke off for a long moment, still petting his hair. “I still don’t know why you hate me,” he said eventually. “I don’t know what changed. But I’m trying to help you, you must see that! I’ve always tried to help you…”_

_All of his facades and shields broken down by the ordeal, Beom-il wanted to believe him. So, so badly he wanted to. But he had already made enough mistakes that night._

_“Get out,” he breathed, shutting his eyes._

_The prince sighed heavily, arguing with him no more but staying where he was. He stroked Beom-il’s hair until the commander somehow managed to fall into an uneasy sleep._

_*******_

He shuddered at the terrible memory.

His sister had made numerous comments after the fact that he hadn’t been the same since then. He always ignored her when she said it, because it would do no good to argue with her and he rarely had the energy to anyway. Besides, she was right. Something in him had broken that night and had never healed right, if indeed it even healed at all.

His eyes drifted of their own accord over to the prince, who sat on the step and watched the goings on, his posture regal but his gaze flighty. Rattled, and understandably so.

He waited patiently while the physician stabilized his shoulder with bandages.

“I’m leaving you range of motion given the circumstances,” she told him. “But you need to try not to use this arm for at least two months, alright?”

Beom-il nodded, accepting the fact that he would be left-handed from here on out.

She left him alone then and he shrugged himself back into his tunic with some difficulty. Clothing righted, he went over to check on the prince.

The prince didn’t look at him as he approached. Beom-il sat down next to him, returning the guard’s angry glare with a raised eyebrow.

“Mu-yeong,” the prince said suddenly. “Could you give us a moment?”

The guard nodded apprehensively after a brief pause and Chang stood, head jerking sharply for Beom-il to follow him.

Chang stepped behind off the other side of the porch and disappeared around the corner of the building. Beom-il followed him.

And quickly found himself slammed up against the wall with the prince in his face.

“Why did you do it?!” Chang snarled, shoving at him hard.

Beom-il hissed as his injury flared. “ _Watch the shoulder_ ,” he growled in response, pushing the prince’s hand off his right arm.

The prince shoved at his left all the harder. “ _Why?!_ ”

Beom-il sighed. “You’re going to have to be more specific.”

“My father!” Chang half shouted, eyes growing misty. “Why did you kill him?”

Beom-il gazed back at him calmly. “We didn’t kill him. He died of smallpox.”

_“Liar.”_

“I’m not lying,” Beom-il insisted. “Physician Lee was indeed called to Hanyang to treat the King for smallpox. But my father also order him to bring the resurrection plant just in case he encountered…difficulties. Which he did.”

Chang’s eyes brimmed with tears. “Did he suffer?” he asked quietly.

“No.” That was a filthy lie, but Beom-il was growing weaker by the minute the longer he spent around the prince. He did not want to cause him pain.

The King’s decline from the disease may have been quick, but from what he had heard, it had not been pleasant.

The prince chose to believe him, fingers tightening in the fabric of Beom-il’s tunic. “So…so that was the plan, hmm? Just…just _keep_ him like that until your sister had her baby? Then dethrone me and take power for yourselves?”

For the prince’s purposes, “Yes.”

But that wasn’t the truth, was it? The truth was…much more complicated than that.

*******

It had been a stupid fucking idea from the start. If they were found out it could expose the Cho clan’s entire operation, which would likely cause their pawns of ministers to unite against them. That would probably end with the Cho clan in jail and quite dead not long after.This was high treason they were talking of committing. Actual high treason.

“Forget this preposterous plan,” he snapped, ignoring his sister’s frown. “And focus on your health. You need to conceive.”

“The King is well over fifty years old,” his sister spat bitterly. “What if he were to pass on before I got pregnant?”

Beom-il could feel her gaze burning into his back, hear the ever so slight accusation in her voice. He had known since her marriage that she blamed him for failing to prevent their father from forcing her, then barely 16, to marry the old King.

*

_He remembered being called to her chambers not long before the wedding by a harried looking court lady, and had entered to find the room in disarray and his sister, still in her night clothes, a complete and utter mess._

_“What are you doing? The ceremonies will begin in less than an hour,” he hissed, trying to keep the annoyance from his voice._

_His little sister (it wasn’t all that long ago that he could still carry her around on his shoulders) had fixed him with a look of profound dislike, tears pouring down her young face._

_“I don’t want to marry him!” she shouted.“I don’t want to!”_

_“You have to.”_

_She threw something at him. He dodged it without much thought. “You promised! You promised to protect me, to stop the marriage, you promised! You’re a liar!”_

_He had tried. He had vehemently opposed it, but his opinion meant very little if it did not align with that of his father’s. He had heard tell also that the King himself had been opposed to marrying again so late in life. None of it had made any difference._

_And none of that made any difference then as he stood there, faced with a sobbing sister being forced into marriage to a man more than three times her age._

_He had sighed heavily and bid the servants leave before folding her up into his arms and letting her cry._

_“I’m sorry,” he whispered into her hair as she burrowed into his chest like the child she still was. “I tried, I’m so sorry…”_

_“I hate you…” she whimpered, holding tight to him._

_Beom-il knew she didn’t mean it. Even if she did, as far as he was concerned she was more than welcome to if it made her feel any better._

_“You’ll be the Queen,” he murmured, rubbing her back as she calmed down. “Just think of that. You will have everything you could ever want, and one day very soon you won’t have to put up with…_ anyone _…telling you what to do.”_

_She sniffled. “Except you.”_

_Beom-il laughed at that. “As if you ever listen to me, dear sister.” He pressed a kiss to the top of her head and released her. “Now get dressed. I’ll see you at the ceremony.”_

_*_

She had changed drastically after her marriage, becoming cold and calculating like their father, so much so that Beom-il would have almost suspected the old King of mistreating her if he didn’t know better. The King was powerless and a puppet, but Beom-il knew him to be a kind man regardless.

And she had Chang, who had looked quite ill himself throughout the entire ceremony and had spent the rest of feast following it talking quietly to his sister and attempting to make her smile. Beom-il had later heard that he looked out for her as much as he could in court and in day to day life in the palace, using what little influence he had with the King and the ministers to make her life more bearable.

She hated him for it. (Beom-il wondered why, but then again he himself was in no position to judge her.)

“So you’ll just stand by like a dog,” she went on, clearly trying to goad him. “And let the prince you so despise ascend to the throne?”

 _That’s the least of our fucking troubles!_ he wanted to shout at her, but he bit his tongue. There was no need for her to know, no need to tell her exactly what had transpired several months earlier...

*

_“Tell me, my son.” His father’s baritone was even and quiet, but still managed to permeate the whole room. “Have you spoken with your sister as of late?”_

_“Just yesterday, father,” he replied, hand tightening on the hilt of his sword as he forced down the anxiety welling in his throat._

_“Hmm.” The Chief State Councilor turned the page of the book he was looking over. “And do you have any good news to report to me?”_

_“Not yet…father,” he said, apprehension stiffening his frame._

_His father shut the book carefully and looked up at him._

_“She has been married long enough,” he stated, eyes boring straight into Beom-il’s soul._

_The commander didn’t respond immediately. “I think,” he began carefully, calling on every ounce of his extensive composure to keep his voice steady in the face of such a heavy and sensitive topic. “These things can take time. Especially given the ages of both parties.”_

_“It is not as if_ you _would know of such things.” Beom-il was not stupid enough to take the bait, even as his father stared directly at him, face completely emotionless. “What exactly do you mean by that?”_

_Beom-il did not allow himself to feel fear as he swallowed. “I mean that my sister is still quite young at 17 and her husband is over fifty. Hardly in his prime.”_

_Cho Hak-ju was silent for a long time. Beom-il held his gaze._

_“We do not have time,” the councilor said, just a spark of cruelty in his eyes. “You will inform your sister that she has three months to conceive a child with the King.”_

_The commander nodded slowly, just a tad confused as to how he could possibly threaten a woman to conceive faster when she was already trying. “Or…?”_

_“Or she will do it with you.”_

_Beom-il stood there, stunned into speechlessness. “…What?” he half squeaked, certain he had missed something, had misunderstood._

_“You heard me.”_

_The commander struggled to speak. “F-father,” he stammered, composure failing in the face of such a horrendous order. “You must be unwell. You should rest. Such a thing is…horrific, the dishonor in that—“_

_“May be necessary to prevent the current Crown Prince from ascending to the throne and dislodging our hold on this nation.”_

_Beom-il must have been visibly shaking by then, grip so tight on the hilt of his sword his knuckles turned white._

Calm the fuck down and try to reason with him. He’s unwell, he must not have slept, he’s not thinking clearly. Or he’s just trying to hurt you and he’ll take it back tomorrow. You have to reason with him.

At least you have to try.

_“Father,” he said, voice a bit steadier. “Surely there is another way. There are hundreds of orphan children in this kingdom. It would not be difficult to find an infant resembling our family—“_

_His father stood up, crossed the floor, and backhanded him across the face hard enough to split his lip before he could even comprehend that it happened._

_“That is not a solution,” his father growled. “It must be a child with Haewon Cho blood. To bring in an outside child leaves more witnesses than we can hope to successfully eliminate. Our bloodline must endure.”_

_Beom-il straightened back up, ignoring the taste of blood in his mouth. “If it is to come to that…surely there is someone else, another relative, someone not her brother to—“_

_“You know as well as I do that the only other possibility is Beom-pal, but if I have my way that dullard will never reproduce. Which leaves you.”_

_This wasn’t real, there was no way this was real. He had always known his father to be a cruel man, but this..._

_He had to be dreaming, this was just another terrible nightmare…_

_“Now go,” his father said like he hadn’t just... “And see that it doesn’t come to that.”_

_Beom-il thought to refuse right then and there, to swear on his life and the honor of his family that he would never do such a thing, that he could not be made to do such a thing, but as his shoulders shifted he felt the tight scar tissue criss-crossing across his back and was reminded that his father could make anyone do anything._

_He had no soul, after all._

_Beom-il bowed shakily and left as quickly as he could, swallowing down the bile in his throat._

_It won’t come to that, he told himself. It won’t come to that._

_*_

It was going to fucking come to that, he realized as he stood there in his sister’s quarters, if they didn’t come up with something soon. If he didn’t help her fake this pregnancy.

He had never told her what their father had threatened. He had simply informed her of their father’s growing impatience and implored her to keep her health her highest priority and to _get pregnant._

_For both our sakes…_

“Not even the King can touch me when I am with child,” she reasoned. “It wouldn’t be that difficult to work out a solution. We would need to swear everyone in my service to secrecy, but we are powerful enough that it will not be an issue.”

“And what of our father? It will not have our blood in its veins. He will never accept it.”

_I already tried to convince him to accept it. He will not. Given what he is already willing to make me do to ensure you bear a child with Haewon Cho blood, he will never fucking accept it, so you better have plan and a damn good one on how to hide it from him…_

“Of course not,” his sister agreed. “We will have to keep it a secret from him, too.”

“And if he finds out?” Beom-il wasn’t entirely sure why he even bothered to ask that question. It wasn’t as if he didn’t already know the answer.

First, it wasn’t a question of if, but when. When their father found out, he would say it was his idea, that when she kept falling pregnant and miscarrying he proposed the plan and forced her to play along.

The scars across his back pulled and his bones ached in the echo of old injuries overlaid one on top of another for decades.

When their father found out, he would take the blame. Like he always fucking did.

*******

The memory faded and Beom-il watched as the prince stared at him, a mix of fury and disbelief in his eyes.

“Do you want it so badly?” the prince asked him. “Power? The throne? That you would do such a thing?”

“Do you really think I had a choice?”

“I think you always had a choice and that you made yours.”

_Well…he would be right there._

“Why are you still standing here?”

Beom-il sighed. “Because I owe you a life debt.”

“You don’t have enough honor to care about such things.”

Beom-il snorted at the insult. It was fair enough _._ “Alright, fine. Also because my idiot cousin was on that ship that sailed out of here. In a matter of days, if hasn’t already, word will reach my father that I utterly failed in my mission to either bring you back to Hanyang to be tried or make it look like you died in a robbery, at which point he might just decide that Beom-pal is the worthier heir and I will be as dead as a fucking doornail!”

The prince stared at him, very tired. “You would have killed me?”

Beom-il was _exhausted_. “Who’s to say what I would have done?” he muttered, sagging into the prince’s hold.

Chang left him there, returning to his guard and the rest of the people. Beom-il stayed where he was for a long time, contemplating how in the hell he ended up here.

*******

“What’s to stop me,” Mu-yeong murmured in Beom-il’s ear later that afternoon. “From slitting your throat and throwing you over the walls tonight to make it look like the monsters killed you?”

Beom-il sighed, annoyed, not looking up from the sword he was sharpening. “If you actually thought you could get away with that, you would have just done it rather than come to brag to me about it.”

Mu-yeong made a slight spluttering sound and Beom-il smiled, amused.

“But what’s to stop me,” he went on, glancing over his shoulder at the guard. “From revealing to the Crown Prince over there exactly _who_ gave up his precious scholars and treasonous plan?”

“ _You wouldn’t—“_

 _“_ Wouldn’t I?” He enjoyed the half terrified, half enraged look on the guard’s face immensely.

“I will—“

“You will do nothing except get out of my face. You have absolutely nothing over me.” He turned back to his sharpening. The guard had guts at least, to approach him with a sheathed sword while Beom-il had several sharp objects in his hands.

“I have the plan.”

Beom-il rolled his eyes. It wasn’t as if the plan held any weight anymore anyway. They had been entirely discovered. What the prince had now would be more than enough to put their heads on the chopping block, given enough support.

“You have nothing the prince does not already know, did not already get from those patient journals. Now if you want your family to go on enjoying life, you will get. The fuck. Out of my face.”

The guard left quickly after that.

Beom-il went back to sharpening weapons, shaking his head.

*******

The guard had not been easy to control.

It was true that the prince was very fond of him (it was not jealousy that burned hot in Beom-il’s chest) and in return, Mu-yeong was loyal to a fault. As such, none of Beom-il’s usual tricks had worked.

He had looked into the guard’s past and saw gambling debt and a whole string of financial difficulties. And a wife, who he seemingly adored and loved to spoil.

 _Oh he would be so easy to buy off_.

He wasn’t.

The guard had drawn his sword at the offer, point held to Beom-il’s throat, which the commander did not appreciate. Not one bit. It had devolved into a sword fight and then a fistfight when the room proved too small to properly utilize their blades. Mu-yeong was an outstanding swordsman and a dirty fighter, but he didn’t have the capacity for taking hits like Beom-il did.

Finally pinning the man beneath him and restraining himself from inflicting any real damage, Beom-il had resorted to directly threatening his wife to keep him quiet about the request and to force him to compile information on the prince’s whereabouts.

The guard had left in a huff. Beom-il watched him go, licking at the split in his lip and musing on how long it had been since an actual fight put it there. 

He had thought that was that, but it wasn’t.

The guard had some _nerve_ …

He became an absolutely terrible employee of the dynasty. Always late to work, getting drunk on the job and falling asleep. All in all, he made sure he never fucking saw _anything_.

And Beom-il was not about to let this blasted guard ruin their plans, so he stooped low (he was ever surprised that there continued to be space to stoop lower) and directly threatened the guard with the murder of his wife and unborn child if he did not comply.

That was what finally did it. Well and truly beaten, the guard gave him what he wanted. He gave Beom-il everything he wanted, and he was _good_ at it, too. The commander was just thrilled.

And now the prince and the guard were going off on a little adventure to investigate the King’s…predicament, giving Beom-il even more leverage over him.

“You made a wise decision, bringing her here yourself.” He told the guard as they watched Mu-yeong’s heavily pregnant wife enter the Naesonjae residence. “Now you know your wife is in good hands, and we are getting what we want.”

The guard fixed his eyes on the ground a few feet in front of him, staring intently. “If anything…” he began. “If anything _untoward_ happens to my wife while she’s here…I will _not_ stand idly by.”

_You fucking think you can threaten me._

His father had always cautioned him about needless displays of violence, but Beom-il had never been very good at controlling the ever present rage in his chest, especially when prodded. He struck the hat from the man’s head and grabbed him by the topknot, something small releasing in his chest at the expression of violence.

“Know your place,” he drawled, voice calm despite his intimidating actions. “You are in no position to issue threats.” He spun the man’s head around, just because he fucking could. “Should I grab your wife by her hair and drag her here? End her life before her eyes?”

The guard trembled with rage, but did nothing.

Beom-il lowered his voice and continued. “I understand the Crown Prince is very fond of you—“ and he was still not jealous of that by any means. “But the Haewon Cho clan will not be threatened by a mere guard. Is that clear?”

The guard nodded almost imperceptibly.

“Good. Now, I need to know where the Crown Prince goes, and with whom he meets. That is the only way to ensure your family’s safety.” He leaned in close so his breath would ghost over the guard’s ear as he whispered, “Got it?”

The guard shivered as Beom-il released him and turned to leave.

“Why don’t you ask him yourself?” he heard the guard murmur.

The commander turned back around.

The guard glowered at him where he stood, posture stiff. “The prince mentioned once that the two of you used to be good friends. What changed?”

Beom-il’s jaw clenched, every ounce of him urging him to _real_ violence, to beat the man into the ground for even daring to ask him that, but for once in his life he didn’t listen to it. He just turned around and walked away…

…And spent the rest of the night getting plastered at a local teahouse as he tried not to think on everything Mu-yeong’s question had evoked. He had made a point to avoid thinking on it since it happened, and he didn’t know why suddenly he couldn’t help but remember it all.

*

_“Are you drunk?”_

_Fifteen-year-old Beom-il snorted and lolled his head up to glower at the prince, who looked down at him where he was lounged against a tree at ass-o’clock at night in the middle of the royal gardens._

_“As a fucking skunk,” he replied, somehow managing not to slur his words._

_The prince sighed and crouched down in front of him. “What happened?”_

_“Isn’t it obvious? Are you gonna make me fucking say it?”_

_Chang shook his his head, standing back up and offering him a hand._

_Beom-il glared at it. “Nah, thanks,” he drawled. “Not going home. I’ll just stay out here tonight.”_

_“You’re not fucking sleeping in the garden. The guards will catch you.”_

_Hearing the prince swear, Beom-il cracked a smile. “Then I’ll move somewhere they won’t.”_

_The prince rolled his eyes. “Just—“ he snatched Beom-il by the hand and dragged him to his feet. “Come with me.”_

_Chang snuck him back to his rooms (he always had been good at avoiding guards when he wanted to). Once inside, he shut the door._

_Beom-il frowned. It had been a long time since he’d been in these rooms._

_“Why did you bring me here?”_

_“To get you cleaned up.Now come here.”_

_Beom-il snorted, decidedly uncomfortable. “I’m fine. I’ll just—“_

_“Get over here and let someone help you for once.”_

_Beom-il turned and regarded his friend, sat on the edge of his bed next to the bowl of water and cloth that had been laid out for him, an insistent look on his face._

_Beom-il went to him (Chang probably would have chased him down if he hadn’t. At least that was his excuse)._

_Chang’s hands were gentle on the sides of his face as he carefully dabbed at the cut below Beom-il’s left eye and at his split lip, wiping the dried blood off his chin._

_“Are you going to tell me what happened now?” the prince asked, not taking his eyes off his work._

_“No.”_

_Chang sighed. “It’s just that he doesn’t normally hit your face...”_

_Beom-il stared dully at the wall as Chang pressed a cool cloth to his rapidly bruising jaw and directed him to hold it there._

_“I don’t know what you’re talking about...” he recited without thinking. “I was training with an older boy today and it got out of hand.”_

_“I understand why you insist on repeating those things to others, but please don’t lie to me. Not here. If you don’t want to say what happened, don’t, but don’t lie.”_

_The prince put the cloth back in the bowl and moved his hands to the ties of Beom-il’s shirt. Beom-il stopped them in their tracks, grabbing the prince by the wrists._

_“What are you doing?”_

_“If he messed up your face like that then I know he did other things. Let me see.”_

_Beom-il was too tired and too drunk to fight him, so he silently turned his back and let the prince pull his tunic from his shoulders._

_The prince made a sad, quiet sound and Beom-il heard the sound of water dripping back into the bowl before a cool cloth pressed to the belt marks on his back. He hissed at the contact, skin stinging unpleasantly._

_“I’m sorry,” murmured the prince._

_Beom-il didn’t reply._

_The truth was that the fight had been about Chang. His father was mortified that Beom-il didn't actually hate the prince, had carried on an real friendship with him, that he actually enjoyed spending time with the prince as a friend rather than just as a means of gathering information._

_His father had ordered him to end his friendship with the prince, to avoid all contact with him unless absolutely necessary._

_He had dared try to oppose his father’s will by arguing that maybe the prince could be swayed to their side. His father disagreed, saying they had no need of a half-royal bastard on their payroll and that if Beom-il wasn’t going to use him to gather information then he needed to stay away from him, lest Beom-il himself be corrupted._

_In some fit of bravery, Beom-il had dared refuse him, and his father had seen to it that Beom-il would never make that mistake again._

_His heart twinged as the prince turned him back around, clucking his tongue._

_“Stop chewing on your lip, you’re making it bleed again,” Chang said, dabbing gently at it, his free hand resting on Beom-il’s shoulder._

I don’t want you gone from my life _, he thought, eyes fixed now on the prince’s beautiful face._ I can’t fucking imagine how horrible this would be without you.

_The prince lowered the cloth, eyes flickering from Beom-il’s mouth up to his eyes and back down again. Then, hand tightening on his shoulder, Chang leaned in and kissed him._

_Beom-il met him halfway, sighing out through his nose in relief._

_It had been his first kiss. It was probably the prince’s as well, nothing more than a careful press of lips that sobered Beom-il to his core and made him feel high and drunk all the same._

_That night, between Chang gently caring for his wounds and his soft kiss on his lips, Beom-il fell in love with him._

_The prince pulled away briefly, studying Beom-il’s face. Beom-il pulled him back in._

_The prince’s hands were gentle, mindful of the bruises on his face and the stripes on his back. Beom-il’s hands were less so, grasping at Chang and dragging him as close as he could like he would lose him tomorrow (because he would)._

_They laid down in the prince’s bed and drew the covers over them, pressing close together, their kisses increasingly desperate. Their touches were fumbling but sure as they wrapped their hands around each other’s cocks, lips slotted together as they brought a touch of pleasure to a night of pain._

_Afterwards, they fell asleep in each other’s arms, Beom-il’s head pillowed on Chang’s chest._

_It was fucking_ perfect _..._

(In a dimly lit teahouse fifteen years later, Beom-il gave up on drinking Soju from a cup and drank straight from the fucking bottle.)

_But in the morning, as he opened his eyes, he was anything but happy. Because nothing that had happened the previous night changed anything about his situation. It just made it worse._

_Unless he wanted to face disownment or even sudden mysterious death, he did not get to keep this. Even if he abandoned his own family, he would still lose all social standing and be thrown far away from the prince. No matter which way he rolled the dice, he did not get to keep this._

_He got up and left without a word, but not before he pressed a kiss to the still sleeping prince’s lips. He couldn’t help himself._

_He was in love with him, after all._

_As he walked home before the sun rose, the anguish of pain and loss was truly too much for him to bear, but he had no choice but to bear it so he found a way._

_Then, in the frigid morning air at fifteen, was the first time he felt hatred towards the prince._

_I hate you for doing this to me._

_I hate you for making me feel like this._

_It’s your fault that I’m in pain._

_I hate you…_

_*_

Beom-il staggered out of the teahouse. It was nearly dawn by the time he did and he was so drunk he could barely stand up straight. As he stumbled in the vague direction of his family’s home, he mused again on why he hated the Crown Prince as he did.

The answer was quite simple really. It was because the prince was so easy to love.

It also became clear rather quickly that he had had entirely too much to drink (that had been the goal), and as always he forgot exactly how horrible one felt after doing such a thing.

Stomach roiling, he ended up vomiting up a decent portion of the liquor against the side of somebody’s house before continuing on. He only made it a few more houses before he ducked into an alley and slid to the ground to sober up a bit. It wouldn’t do any good to return home in the state he was in.

He knew the routes of the city guards. They wouldn’t be by here for a while and it was too early for anyone else to be out, so he was unlikely to be caught lounging about like the drunkard he was.

Stretching his legs out over the stone street, he rested his head against the the side of the house and stared blankly at the other side of the alley.

His sister had been trying to get him to stop drinking for years.

*

_It’s bad for your health!” she often shouted at him, swiping the cup of Soju out of his hand._

_He took it back from her, pressing his free hand to his abdomen as it ached with every shift._

_“Living with our father is bad for my health.”_

_*_

His father had ultimately been the one to get him to stop drinking on the job (one guess as to how he did that). Once again, feeling well and truly miserable, he thought to quit.

But the memories continued, unbidden, and he was reminded of why he never did.

*

_He would never forget the look on the prince’s face when he saw him again after that night._

_His beautiful smile, so wide it nearly split his face in half. He had been so happy to see him._

_And Beom-il had watched that smile slide off Chang’s face, agony squeezing his heart as he glared at the prince and informed him he had no time to speak with him that day._

_He said that the next day, and the next...and the next..._

_Until the prince grabbed him by the hand and dragged him to an isolated corner of the garden, begging him to tell him what was_ wrong _what had_ happened _..._

_“I thought you had feelings for me...” the prince had whispered. “I...I have feelings for you...”_

_And Beom-il had to fucking stand there and say “I don’t feel the same way now kindly leave me in peace, your Highness.”_

_Except that wasn’t...exactly what he said. Exactly what he said was…a lot and included a nasty slur for homosexual men. The prince had stared, stunned, but he hadn’t let go of Beom-il’s hand._

_“What did he do to you?” was all the prince could manage._

_Beom-il had wanted to cry, had wanted to fall to his knees and beg the prince for forgiveness, for help, and tell him everything his father had ever done and why._

_If he had been a brave man he would have, or at least would have said or done something to the effect of_ this isn’t my doing I don’t want this but I have no choice _, but at his core, Beom-il was a fucking_ coward _._

_So he looked the prince in the eye and said, “No one did anything to me. I just don’t have feelings for you.”_

_Chang had teared up, staring uncomprehendingly at Beom-il before ripping his hand away and leaving him there in the garden._

_As soon as he was out of earshot, Beom-il had broken down, sobbing ugly, soul deep sobs into his hands until he had no more tears to cry._

_It would be the last time he spoke to the prince for a long, long time, but that one night would not be the last time Beom-il would kiss him._

_Not yet a commander, twenty-four year-old Beom-il was still an officer at the time the Japanese invaded Joseon, so he was called to fight, as was his father and so many others._

_He had been walking through the halls of the palace the day before he left, having just delivered a message to his father, when suddenly his hand was caught and he was yanked into a side room, the door slammed shut behind him._

_His hand was on his sword, preparing to draw, until he recognized the face of the prince._

_He let go of his sword, dislike burning in him in place of whatever else he might have felt._

_“It’s quite rude to pull people into closets, your Highness,” he said brusquely. “All the same, may I be of assistance?”_

_The prince looked down at him, tightening his grip on Beom-il’s shoulders. “You’re leaving tomorrow. For the war.”_

_Caught off guard by the seemingly random question, Beom-il simply replied, “Yes...”_

_The prince eyed him for a long moment, warring with himself, before he leaned forward and pressed his lips to Beom-il’s._

_The officer had been so stunned at the prince’s boldness that he hadn’t pushed him away. That he might have kissed him back, rested his hands on the prince’s waist as Chang’s hands lifted to his jaw._

_The prince pulled away after a moment, but didn’t release him._

_“Come back,” he said simply. “Survive and come back.” He stroked his thumbs gently over Beom-il’s cheeks as he went on. “I...I won’t pretend to understand what happened to make you despise me, but...come back, and we’ll work it out. Whatever it was, we can work it out. At least I want to try.”_

_Chang kissed him again, chastely but deeply. “I couldn’t let you leave without telling you that. And without…and without kissing you one last time.”_

_The prince released him, and Beom-il was slow to let go of his waist. What he wanted to do with every ounce of his being was pull the prince closer, kiss him again, hug him tightly and promise to return, that they would work it out when he did because they were boys no longer, but grown men. They could figure something out..._

_What he did instead was dip his head to the prince with a cool “Your Highness” and leave him there, heart aching so badly he reached up to rub at his chest._

_Though all the days he spent on the battlefield, all the nights he spent in a freezing tent in the middle of fucking nowhere, he never stopped thinking about that kiss._

_*_

Still slumped against a random house in the middle of Hanyang, Beom-il looked up miserably at the sky.

 _Goddamnit_ , he loved him. After all these fucking years, he still loved him. What kind of a fucking weakhearted fool did that make him?

And sooner or later, he was going to have to watch him die.

If his buried his face in his hands and cried like a little boy for the first time in years, he would blame it on the alcohol.

*******

_Because that’s why he was still here, wasn’t he? Why he hadn’t completely his mission. Why he never would. Because he loved him._

Beom-il paused in his task for a moment, staring off at nothing as he wondered, briefly, what his life might have been like if he had accepted the prince’s offer to help.

*******

Despite the oppressive feeling of death by raging monster constantly hanging over their heads, Beom-il hadn’t felt quite so free in years. Far removed from his father’s ever watchful gaze, he found himself to be less tense and…almost happy.

But few good things in his life stayed for long.

He, the prince, the guard, and the scraggly commoner named Yeong-shin—

( _“Who are you?” Mu-yeong growled._

_“I am merely one of the people.”_

_Beom-il scoffed, looking up from his broth. “Bullshit. The only people I’ve ever seen shoot like that are Chakho. And considering you have the character for tiger branded on your shoulder…”_

_The commoner stared at him, face expressionless. The prince and the guard were staring at him, too._

_“What?” Beom-il asked with a shrug. “If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a fucking duck.”_ )

—had been discussing their next moves in the form of a run for Sangju to enlist the hope of Lord Ahn when something thumped on the gate.

He, the prince and the guard all leapt to their feet as the people cried out in fear.

“TRAITOR LEE CHANG, THE CROWN PRINCE, MUST HEAR THIS!”

Beom-il leapt and slapped his hand over Chang’s mouth before the man could make a sound, shushing him as he spluttered indignantly.

“Shhh, they don’t know you’re here yet. They can’t be certain you’re here,” he whispered into the prince’s ear as the man out there read off the decree.

Unfortunately, he hadn’t said that loud enough for the guard to hear.

“I, the Crown Prince’s guard, will come out!”

“Shut up!” Beom-il hissed but it was too late. In hindsight, despite his status as a mole, Mu-yeong hadn’t known about their orders to kill Chang before he was tried. As soon as the guard spoke, the arrows started flying.

The prince froze solid against him in horror as the people dropped like flies, but Beom-il didn’t wait for them to be struck as well.

Grabbing the prince around the chest, Beom-il dragged him into what had at one point been something of an office, pressing him up against the solid wooden wall to keep the rattled prince out of the way of the arrows flying through the windows.

Slightly panicked himself, Beom-il thought desperately on what to do.

_I have to keep him safe, I have to, I have to keep him safe…_

He had well and truly chosen a side, hadn’t he.

So he took the prince’s face in both his hands.

“Listen to me. Hey! Look at me.”

Chang did, trembling with terror and grief and the tens of deaths caused by his mere presence there.

“No matter what happens, no matter what you hear you’re going to stay right here until that Chakho out there says it’s safe, okay? Not Mu-yeong, only him. Don’t ask why, it’ll take to long to explain. Now, I’m going to go out there, and I’m going to pull rank, and I’ll lead them away from here. But that only works if you _stay in here_ and _stay quiet_ or we’re all dead, do you understand?”

The prince stared at him, horrified, as he nodded.

Beom-il was about to leave when he was suddenly struck with a terrible feeling, a feeling that said when he walked out of here he would never see the prince again, and that feeling was so unbearable he couldn’t leave without…

Beom-il kissed him, pouring fifteen years of feeling into that one moment as the prince froze, stunned. Pulling away, he folded Chang up in his arms.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered in his ear. “Please believe me when I tell you I had no choice, or at least that I believed I didn’t.”

Chang slowly returned the embrace, hands shaking on Beom-il’s back.

“My sister…” the commander whispered. “My sister is not actually pregnant. She miscarried six months ago and we faked a pregnancy to avoid our father’s wrath.” He shuddered at the memory. “There, I truly had no choice. I’m in no position to ask you for a favor, but I will anyway. Please don’t harm her. She was only trying to survive.”

“Beom-il, don’t do this…” the prince breathed. “You can’t just do this and then leave—“

Beom-il kissed him again. This time, the prince kissed him back, desperately so. “I’ve loved you since I was fifteen,” he said, seemingly the first fully honest words he’d spoken in years. “I’m sorry I lied to you. I’m sorry I hurt you.”

“Beom-il…”

But he wrenched himself from the prince’s arms before he could finish (he might not have been able to leave otherwise), ignoring how the prince tried to grab him and pull him back. Putting on his best officer voice, he strode out into the yard and _roared._

“WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?!”

The entire yard went painfully silent and he pulled back the barricades and wrenched open the door.

The soldiers stood just outside, looking ready to faint.

“C-commander—“ the captain stuttered.

Beom-il dragged him off his horse. “Did you not stop to think who _else_ might be in there?”

“W-what were you—“

Beom-il dropped him to the ground and got on his horse. “That guard who just spoke was a mole for me who decided to go rogue. He, the prince, and a few others got the jump on my men and I and overpowered us. One man was killed, one escaped, and I was taken captive.”

The captain scrambled to his feet. “We will capture the prince and be off—“

Beom-il cut him off with a loud sigh. “Your dullness tires me, captain. Do you truly think I would have walked out empty handed if the prince were _still in there?_ ”

The men stared at him, so he elaborated.

“Upon receiving the information that the guard, who you conveniently _shot down with arrows_ , was a mole, the prince fled. If I were to guess where, I would say back to Hanyang. I’m surprised you didn’t pass him on the road on your way here.”

“If we hurry,” a lieutenant piped up. “We could still catch him!”

 _Yes, that’s it. Believe me._ “For the sake of your sorry necks, let’s hope so.” He turned his horse around. “Oh, and Captain?”

The captain looked sheepishly up at him.

“You can walk back.”

*******

They made it several hours (hopefully enough time for the prince to be well on his way to Sangju) before Beom-il’s story fell apart.

“Commander?”

“Yes?” he asked without turning around in his saddle.

“You remember that guard we shot dead?”

“Of course.”  
  
“Well he wasn’t. Dead, that is. In fact, he was quite unharmed and managed to get us some intelligence before we left. I’ve just now been able to decode it. As it is, well…he says you’re a traitor.”

There were five swords at his throat and he was being dragged off his horse before he could even flinch.

He thought about fighting it, but ultimately it would have been useless. Including the detail about Mu-yeong dying had been a fatal error. Had he not done that, an angry mole would have been easily discredited, but as it was…

His father had always told him to mind the details. He had never really learned, had he?

His karma had finally come home to roost, and he was a dead man walking.

*******

The rest of his journey back to Hanyang was spent hogtied on the back of a horse as he looked for a way to escape. Roll down a hill here (he would rather risk a broken neck from a fall than wait for his father to kill him), grab a sharp rock there, attempt to dislocate his thumb and slip his bonds…

All futile. The soldiers kept a close eye on him, believing they had caught a bigger prize than the prince. They were right, but unfortunately, Cho Hak-ju had always been one to shoot the messenger.

Or in their case, decapitate.

He had never seen his father so angry.

Beom-il was knelt in the center of the room, flecked with blood from the dead messengers as his father poured over the evidence and testimonies they had provided him with. The commander thought again to lie to him, but if this was to be his last opportunity to regain his honor, he would not squander it by lying to save his own life.

“What have you done…” his father whispered. So Beom-il told him the whole damn story. About the prince saving his life, finding enough evidence to have them all in the executioner’s hands by the end of next week, and how by now he was safely within the walls of Sangju, an undead army protecting him. “Everything we worked for, everything we planned for… _why?!_ ”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Beom-il replied sourly. “Maybe you just hit me one too many times.”

And he did so again, hard enough to knock his teeth loose. Still recovering from the hit, he heard rather than saw his father draw his sword. “I thought better of you, Beom-il. Truly I did…”

Beom-il _laughed. “_ You would kill me? For real this time, you would kill me? Your only competent heir? You would truly leave everything in the incapable hands of _Beom-pal?_ ”

He would. And it was the uncharacteristic shake of his father’s voice that should have tipped him off to it.

His father’s face was blank and his gaze was ice cold and haunted as his fingers curled tightly around the hilt of his sword. “At least Beom-pal knows how to follow orders.”

**Author's Note:**

> I’m not sure if I’m completely happy with this. I went back and forth a lot debating which story I wanted to tell: the one about the shattered boyhood romance or the one about horrific abuse and I think I ended up somewhere in the middle, but who knows really. Might fix it. Might not. We’ll see.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Let me know what you think :3


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